


You're a long way from home.

by Chokopoppo



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Horror, Human/Monster Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26581834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: Ratchet only has one rule--don't let the creature get onto the boat.Merperson/Human AU, because sometimes I have to acknowledge that this is My Trash.
Relationships: Pharma/Ratchet (Transformers)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 78





	You're a long way from home.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo does anyone want uhhhhhhhh *checks notes* goblins
> 
> I realized I haven't posted any Ratchma on Ao3 since like Admirable Weaknesses and like, I have a brand, okay? It's a bad brand, but it's mine and I worked for it.
> 
> Come follow me on [tumblr](https://www.chokopoppo.tumblr.com) for more bad content.
> 
> Go check out the [podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26693575/chapters/65111569?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_349003231) by [bephemos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bephemos/pseuds/bephemos)!

Ratchet only has one rule—don’t let the creature get on the boat.

Back in the golden mornings of April, when it had first reared its monstrous head full of needle-sharp teeth and rolling black eyes, there’d been lots of rules. Kill it before it calls its brethren to assist it in tearing the ship apart and devouring him in the wreck, for one. Seafaring men warn people like him about sirens; the way they swarm, the way they hunt, the danger inherent in leaving the shore alone in such a small vessel.

But things have changed in the months since its first appearance. It’s almost embarrassing, actually, how long it took Ratchet to realize how totally isolated the creature is out here. A bottom-feeder, probably, in already over-hunted waters. It’s not strong enough to tear his little rowboat to pieces; it’s not even strong enough to capsize the damn thing, not with Ratchet’s considerable weight in it. It doesn’t even seem interested in getting a bite of him.

It’s territorial, sure, but its only technique for protecting its space is giving foreign boats a good scare. And if he knows anything from what interaction he’s had with it, it’s lonely, bored, and too stupid to run from humans. It’s also fucking disgusting.

“You’re fucking disgusting,” Ratchet says, as it spits an eel down at his feet.

“I caught that for you,” it says reproachfully. “You haven’t caught anything in days. Piss poor excuse for a fisherman. I’m just trying to do you a favor.”

“I didn’t ask for a favor,” Ratchet snaps, and turns away to tug experimentally at his jerry-rigged net on the other side of the rowboat.

Technically, that _had_ been rule number two: never turn your back on the beast. It’s still not a good idea, but he’s old, and he forgets things, these days. Forgets how dangerous it could be, if it spit on its palms and got right down to it.

But it never has. Never does. Hard to keep a grudge against something too stupid to drown him while his back is turned.

The beast grabs the lip of the wood and pushes down, shaking the boat in its effort to hoist itself up a little farther. Ratchet yelps and steadies himself, which it ignores in its typical fashion. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” it says, black eyes peering down into the shelter of the hull, “why _do_ you have a piece of metal strapped to your leg? None of the other humans I’ve seen have one. Not any of the sailors or tur… turrets. Does it do something?”

Ratchet leans back against the cooler he keeps in the boat for caught fish, glaring at the creature and sizing up his options vis a vis knocking it off the side, maybe (hopefully) painfully enough that it won’t try this kind of thing again. “It’s called a prosthetic,” he says shortly. “One of my legs isn’t long enough to walk with, so I needed—I need an extension to walk properly.”

Right on cue, the creature reaches out to touch it, claws razor sharp and curious, and Ratchet slaps his hand away. He regrets it instantly, though not because of the pained yelp that follows; as always, that deceptively rubbery-looking skin is bitterly cold and sharp with placoid scales. 

God, this thing is repulsive. It stinks, too, like petrol and fish and garbage.

“You didn’t _have_ to do that,” it complains, rubbing at its hand exaggeratedly. Then, “so why is it so short?”

“The rest got torn off,” he says shortly, and crosses his arms over his chest. He considers looking away to discourage further prodding, but that didn’t exactly go his way last time. Besides, if he’s learned anything about the creature these last few months, it’s that it never takes the hint.

But the beast doesn’t ask another question; it stares at his leg, brow furrowed for a moment, and then holds up its other hand for him to see. “Torn off,” it repeats, and against his better instincts, Ratchet squints through the dying daylight at it. Two fingers are absent, he realizes. He’d always assumed its hands were just smaller, but on closer inspection, he can see shredded webbing and healed-over bumps of protruding bone.

“Oh,” he says after a moment. He _does_ look away, then, feeling… what, ashamed? Surprised? He’s used to hearing platitudes about the old war wounds, not… whatever this is. Sympathy, maybe. Solidarity.

After a pause, the boat shifts heavily under him. On instinct, he grabs one of the oars and jams the beast hard in the center of its flat chest, knocking it back hard in the middle of its feeble attempts to board. There’s a curse and a splash, and he watches it disappear under the water with smug satisfaction.

Undeterred, it swims under the hull and splashes him from behind a few seconds later. “Whoreson!” It shrieks, and jerks itself out of range as Ratchet curses and jams the oar towards it again. “God should tip your stupid boat, twofucker! Come down into the water, I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget!”

It continues on like that, cursing him and the sea, and Ratchet sighs. It’s hard to make intelligent conversation with a creature that learned to speak by listening to sailors.

“I’ve told you a million times to stay the hell out of my boat,” he interrupts at last, feeling particularly short tempered, “it’s rule number one! Why can’t you just go bother someone else? A sailor! A sailor would be _thrilled_ to be irritated by something like you.”

“They are _not,”_ it says reproachfully, “they shoot when they see me in the water. They want something prettier than me.”

“Now _that’s_ a low-bar,” Ratchet says, smiling nastily, “I’ve never seen anything uglier in my life.”

The creature scowls at him and plunges back under the water. For a moment, Ratchet thinks he’s pissed it off enough to send it away and have a nice quiet evening for once, but no such luck—it resurfaces a few feet away, half its head poking up from the surf. Without its flat, noseless face and lipless, murderous mouth, it almost looks human.

Almost.

He doesn’t feel guilty. It’s not like he said anything _wrong._ The creature really _is_ hideous, even if it _does_ look like a proper mermaid from far away. It even sings, which would be particularly fetching if it didn’t sound like a drunk baritone owl gargling seawater.

But it all falls apart when you get up close. Ignoring the grating sound of its voice and the _smell,_ there’s those big dark eyes in that flat, incomplete face, and the tangled, knotted mass of white-blond hair. Scrawny shoulders from poor diet and scars from boat propellers and old-fashioned stupidity.

The golden age of mermaids, with their inhuman beauty and soaring siren songs and soft hands reaching up to ensnared men, has long since gone into the dark. The beauties and shining scales were all too valuable to just leave in the water—now you’re lucky to catch a glimpse of even a pitiful ugly like this.

“Rude twofucker,” it calls to him.

Well. If you have a very _loose_ definition of luck.

Despite his better instincts, Ratchet smiles fondly as he leans down to prod at the eel in the boat. It’s quite dead, and pretty fat; could be good after some good grilling—

“Ratchet,” the creature’s voice interrupts from _right_ next to his elbow, and Ratchet startles badly, rocking the boat, “Ratchet, you _are_ going to eat that, aren’t you? You know how, don’t you? I could teach you. I heard a _good_ trick for eel from one of the turrets on the pier.”

“Turrets?” Ratchet asks. “Turrets—you—do you mean _tourists?”_ He laughs. “Your English is _really_ shitty. And that’s coming from _me,_ I mean, I thought _mine_ was bad…”

The creature stares up at him. “There’s nothing wrong with your voice,” it says, “you speak differently. It makes you sound unique.”

“It makes me sound like city trash,” Ratchet says dismissively, “that’s not a good thing. It just tells everyone I don’t belong here.”

The boat lists to the side again as the creature vaults itself up on the side, arms locked. “It’s beautiful,” he—it—says, “it’s different. Like you.”

Ratchet freezes, staring deep into those black, wet eyes. “Get off my boat,” he manages after a moment.

The creature cracks a grin. “No kiss?” It asks snidely, and laughs as Ratchet shoves it bodily back into the water.

  
  


“You’re a long way from home,” the creature says to him late one evening, when Ratchet finds himself back on the dark water with a bottle of Maker’s Mark instead of his cooler and his head is already starting to spin. It has a coy look in its eyes, like it’s trying to be clever, which is typically dangerous territory; but Ratchet is four glasses into the good stuff and willing to be generous.

“You’re one to talk,” he says, settling back. “Where are you from, anyway? We don’t have sharks around these parts. Not this late in the year.”

The creature sniffs proudly. “I’m not a shark, you know,” it says. “I just look like one. Frightens stupid sailors away. Frightened you, didn’t I?”

It’s true—the first time he’d seen the dark form of the creature shoot through the water under his vessel had put the fear of God into Ratchet’s heart. But he doesn’t believe in any of that wishy-washy stuff these days. “The longer I know you, the less frightening you are,” he says, “I bet you’ve never even killed anybody.”

There’s a pause, and then the creature laughs, chirring like a jackal in victory. “Never killed anybody!” It repeats, and laughs again. “Never killed anybody! You think I don’t have to eat, like anybody else? Sailors have foul lungs, but the rest is tolerable—once they fall in the water, their power melts in the waves and all that’s left to do is pull them down, down, until the struggling stops.”

Ratchet stares it down. “You drown them?” He asks, stupidly. It’s October, cool on the water and cold in the evenings, but until this moment, he must not have felt the crisp of autumn. Or maybe the whiskey was keeping him warm and ignorant, and only now is sobriety peeking through.

“Don’t be stupid, of course I do,” the creature says, and slings its arms over the side of the boat. Its eyes glisten in the moonlight, black eyes, doll eyes, watching him… attentively? Hungrily? “One day you’ll fall in too, Ratchet, and I’ll devour you like all the rest.” One long, curved claw reaches forward and scrapes, slowly, down the length of Ratchet’s metal leg. “I won’t eat all of you,” it says, almost to itself, “I won’t eat this. I won’t take your skull apart. Your eyes, your tongue, your head—I want it all in one piece, Ratchet. I’ll keep that much of you for as long as I can, before the water bloats your skin and takes you apart until all I have left is bone.”

Its eyes are very black.

“Okay,” Ratchet says. “Then I won’t fight you.”

The creature blinks. “What?”

“When that one day comes and I fall in,” Ratchet explains, as if to a child, “I won’t fight you. I’ll let you do it.”

“That’s not—I mean, _why,”_ the creature snaps, scowling petulantly, “is this your ‘dry humor’ again? Are you trying to pull on my leg? Are you ‘being funny’ at me?”

“No,” Ratchet says, and fills his glass with whiskey. The smell of it grounds him and centers him. “Like you said, I’m a long way from home. I’m tired. Lonely.”

The creature is staring him, like it’s trying to figure him out, or catch him in a lie. “Lonely,” it repeats after him. And then, frowning, “I don’t know what ‘lonely’ is.”

“It’s when everyone leaves you behind,” he says. “When there’s no one left but you.”

Far from home. His house on the shoreline is one great empty space, bare where someone should be filling it. Home left him all by himself in that big, empty house. Home has gone where he cannot follow.

He sips his whiskey and lets his head fall back, staring at the black, star-speckled sky. He doesn’t even bother looking up as the boat sloshes sideways.

“Ratchet,” the creature says softly, “look. I’m breaking your rule.”

“That’s okay,” he murmurs, “tonight, I guess that’s okay.”

Dark waves slap soft against the hull of the boat. Faraway, somewhere on the shore, a woman is singing a song Ratchet doesn’t know the words to. Her distant strains sink into the ocean, swept away by the crashing on the shore.

“Lonely,” the creature says, and when Ratchet looks up at him at last, he’s staring down into the water, his deformed hand wrist deep in the waves. “I’m lonely, too. There’s no one left down there but me. All the rest… the ones who didn’t escape to the deep water were fished up or hunted down.” He looks back up, and those doll eyes pin Ratchet in his place. “But now you’re here. And I’m not…”

He trails off. He looks so frail, in the dark; the moonlight lights his long white hair like the surface of a celestial body, and his grey tail, all powerful muscle in the water it was built for, bends pathetically where it lays over the lip of the rowboat.

“You can’t go away,” he says at last. “Not now that I found you. Tell me that you’ll stay.” He looks up—his eyes glitter. “If you stay, I won’t have to drag you down like all the rest. We can stay like this, together.”

Far away, the song on the shore is coming into its faraway coda, lilting notes being swallowed, slowly and surely, by time. Ratchet cannot handle the silence, not now, not with his friend staring at him like that, eyes wet and desperate and sincere.

“It’s too quiet,” he says, and then, as though the danger of the request is inconsequential, “will you sing?”

The man in the boat blinks at him, slowly, and tilts his head, exposing his long, pale neck. “If I do,” he says, “you’ll stay?”

“I swear.”

It’s not beautiful music. Not at first, anyway. Ratchet has heard his ugly voice before, and it repulsed him then, negated its own power. Maybe the difference, now, is that he wants to hear it, wants the sound to fill up all the empty spaces between them. Or maybe it’s even less complicated than that. Maybe he just needs a reminder of why he still comes into the water, why he trades his empty house for his empty boat.

It’s grotesque, it grinds and screeches like a feral animal in the midnight hours. But there again, it clicks, curls, sharpens into the shape of dignity, strong and laughing and viceral. And then it breaks against him, like water cresting over the shore and flowing purposefully over the rocks, over his feet—the tide, pulling back, pulling him closer.

He tries to resist, but only barely.

Dark clouds sweep over the pale light of the stars, and Ratchet can no longer make out the shape of his face, the glint of his dark eyes. He can barely believe the creature is there at all, uncharacteristically still and unfamiliar in the soft pitch.

When he strains his ears, Ratchet thinks he can hear words, though he cannot make them out and finds himself infuriated. This is a trick, he reminds himself—sirens are wicked, prone to tricks and lies. That isn’t the thing that upsets him.

What _does_ is the way his voice swells up under Ratchet’s gaze, letting the music soar out to distant boats on foreign shores. It’s supposed to be _his._ He’s the one who asked for it—it was supposed to be a gift—he cannot bear the thought of sharing it with anyone—anger and desperation and long forgotten desire mingle and repulse each other like oil in water and he

cannot bear the thought of losing him and he reaches out

The sandpaper prick of its flesh meets his hands and reality rips savagely through him. He gasps like a man drowning, hands shaking, tears streaming down his face. The music has stopped all at once. The clouds have passed.

Here they are; alone, at last, at the end of the universe, at the place where the calm water meets the clear, starry sky, both as black and endless as his eyes.

“Ratchet,” the creature sighs, and reaches up to touch his face. Ratchet lets him, holding on to him like driftwood in an empty ocean. The brush of a clawtip grazes his skin, just slightly, as one of those cold, ragged fingers wipes away a tear already drying on his skin in the ocean breeze.

When he leans up to kiss him, Ratchet does not resist.

The taste is fetid, like rotting carcass and raw meat and rot, like wet earthworms after rain. He does not recoil; he can still feel the music rattling inside his brain. He opens his mouth to it.

When the creature breaks away, he cradles Ratchet’s face in his hands, strokes a finger over his cheek—and smiles. “Mine,” it whispers, and slithers out of his arms, out of the boat, and out of sight.

The spell is broken the second he hears the splash, and the soft fuzz in his brain is replaced instantaneously with fury and humiliation. An animal scream rips its way out of him as he lurches to his feet and hurls the empty glass in his hand after the shadow now long out of sight in the water. He is cold and wet and shaking, and pathetically, uselessly alone.

He hates the creature first—for tricking him, for using him, for taking advantage of him in his weakened and addled state. And then, just as easily, he hates himself, weak and pathetic and alone, stupid and so desperate to mean something, to be _touched,_ that he fell into that _thing’s_ arms as soon as they were extended to him.

Here, at the end of the universe, he sits in his boat and weeps. 

He returns to the water; of course he does. He manages to hold out for a _record_ four whole days. What power, what presence. Please, hold your applause. It’s got nothing to do with forgiveness—really, it’s because Arcee is worrying about him, and has now left him two badly cooked casseroles, which he won’t eat and make him feel guilty to see in the fridge. She wants so desperately to fill up the empty places in his life, but he can’t let her in now, and probably never will. What was once familiar is now alien to him, and these days he cannot bear her.

So the ocean calls, and he returns to it with only grudging resistance.

It’s always cold on the water, even in the summer; but in late October, as the weather peers over the precipice into November’s frozen abyss, everything has gone grey. The beaches, which just weeks ago bustled with loud women and drunk husbands, now lie bare. Besides a scant few families visiting on their late vacations and determined to make the most of it, it’s a vast canvas blank of humanity.

Between the overexcited spray of the ocean and the occasional spits of rain, Ratchet fully expects to get drenched. He’s bundled up in his cheery red raincoat-sweatshirt combo at Arcee’s insistence, but he doesn’t expect it to do much of anything.

Really, he shouldn’t be out on the water at all in a boat this small. But he doesn’t go out too far; if it weren’t for the chilly fog, he could see the shore from here. Worst case scenario, he can swim back. He steadies the boat as a swell of water rocks it up and down. In this light, the water is a sickly green, the crests of surf and foam a pale grey. The clear blue of sparkling summer days is gone, and all its noise with it.

It takes the creature less than fifteen minutes to find him. Ratchet wonders if that should concern him, before figuring he’s out here against the risk of a storm because he wants to talk to a fish, so his house is probably glass and he can’t afford to throw stones. “Ratchet,” it says, voice all breathy excitement, “you’re alright! I thought something might have... happened…” at this, its face begins to crumple, and it’s tone goes sour. “You were gone for a long time, Ratchet,” it adds reproachfully, “you could have told me. I was worried.”

“It was only a few days,” Ratchet deflects, and then, screwing up his courage, “anyway, I was mad at you.”

“Mad? At me?” The creature frowns. “What did _I_ do?”

Ratchet feels anger running hot under his skin, feels his neck flush with blood. “You tricked me,” he says, trying to stay level, “you led me on and then you just left me. You made me feel like an idiot.”

The creature’s face, once creased and crushed with vulnerability, goes blank. It stares at him for a moment like that, and he’s almost tricked by the stupidity of its’ wet, fishy glaze, before it darkens in v-lines. “You _asked_ me to,” it says coldly, “you _asked_ me to! I was trying to be what you _wanted._ So that you would stay with me, like you _promised!_ And you _lied_ to me! You want to talk about _tricks? You_ tricked _me!”_

The rain, so far withholding, hits all at once. Ratchet barely notices it—if anything, it feels like steam rising off his shoulders. The blood pumping in his ears is so alien, so unfamiliar—he hasn’t let himself get this angry in—in _years,_ not since there was someone in his life worth getting angry with. He’s so used to turning it _inwards,_ but now—now it’s out, and he feels like he’s blown a fuse.

“I can’t believe you,” he snaps, “you are _genuinely_ unbelievable! I can’t just stay on a boat on the ocean for the rest of my life! I have a home on the shore, you know. I have a life back there. There’s so much more shit in my life for me to worry about than just _you."_

The creature’s rage is palpable. It surges up, lifting itself up above the surface of the raging water, growling, back arched, pupils tightened, that black sucked into a mass of white. Ratchet was wrong—nothing about it looks human. "Then why the _fuck_ are you here?” It snarls. “Do you think I’m some stupid _creature_ for you to outwit? You’re here _every_ day. You want to tell me about your life on the shore?” It laughs humorlessly, high and savage, that jackal cry stolen away by the wind. “You don’t have one! You can lie to yourself, Ratchet, but don’t you _dare_ lie to me. Look me in the eye! Why are you here?”

“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” Ratchet snaps. “Because I thought—because I catch myself thinking that you’re a human, _every_ time, because I think I mean something to you, beyond what you can use me for, and that makes me think I love you! But I don’t. I can’t.”

The cold wind whips rain and spray into his face, and Ratchet flinches, wipes it away irritably. When he looks back, the creature is gone.

 _Good riddance,_ he thinks, right before a force from below and a wave from the storm strikes the boat and tips him into the dark water.

The anchor of his metal leg leads the way, dragging him straight down away from the pale grey light of the surface. Above him, dancing by the shadow of the overturned boat, he sees the creature's long tail, curling against the darkness. It circles the boat, giddily, and then turns to dart after him.

Ratchet’s mind goes static for a few seconds. But it’s enough.

His leg hits the dark sand, maybe twelve feet down, and the figure is on him. He can’t see it clearly, down here in the dark, but he can feel the way it swarms against him—the way it grabs his throat with both hands.

He thrusts his arms out and tries to grab the hands holding him down, but the water saps him of his strength, slowing him down as he struggles to fight the creature off of him. It flicks its tail and slams him against the dark sand under the roiling sea.

And then he remembers his promise.

He takes a final look at the creature before releasing his grip and closing his eyes. The grip on his throat tightens—tightens—he pressure on his chest is immeasurable—surely soon he’ll slip away into unconsciousness—

Strong, thin arms wrap around his chest, and suddenly he is jerked to the surface, coughing, gasping in the dark space below his boat.

He sucks in breath after breath, and grabs one of the seats above him to keep himself afloat. Cold, wet hands grab at his face, nervously tug at his ears.

“You’re shitty at swimming,” the creature says. “I mean, _all_ you humans are shitty at swimming, but that was _particularly_ unimpressive.”

Ratchet can’t help it—he laughs. There’s something giddy about the genuine concern in the creature’s voice, the way it can’t stop touching him. “It’s my leg,” he says, like an apology. “It’s all metal, and it’s pretty heavy. I can’t swim with it on, it just acts as an anchor.”

“Oh.” The creature considers this. “You know, it’s not fair of you to be angry with me,” it says. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know,” Ratchet admits. “I was being stupid. I’m sorry for disappearing.”

The creature screws up his face. “I’m sorry, too,” he says, after a moment, and moves in a little closer, touching Ratchet’s shoulder like a porcelain vase. “I didn’t _mean_ to hurt you. I was just playing.”

The creature is so close now, and so _human_ , as if the monstrous rage of before was nothing but a bad dream. Soft eyes, nervous hands. Close enough to kiss.

“You didn’t kill me,” Ratchet says after a moment. “Why? I wasn’t going to fight you.”

“Because you were going to let me,” he says softly. “Because you promised.”

He is so close now. Ratchet reaches towards him and brushes a long tendril of white hair away from his face. When he looks human, he looks so human, and, at long last, Ratchet asks the question he should have asked the first time they spoke. “Hey,” he murmurs, “what’s your name?”

He leans his cheek into Ratchet’s open palm. “Pharma,” he says, “I’m Pharma.”

The pouring rain rattles onto the hull of the boat above them, but here, just above the surface of the water, it is dark, and cold, and still. “It’s nice to meet you,” Ratchet says.

Pharma narrows his eyes. “That’s a stupid thing to say,” he snaps, and pulls away from Ratchet’s hand. “I’m done playing with you! All you’ve done today is cause me trouble. Go back home.”

“Uh,” Ratchet says. “I can’t? My boat is upside down?”

“That’s not _my_ problem.”

“You’re the one who flipped it over!” 

“Semantics,” Pharma scoffs, waving his hand dismissively. Ratchet glares at him. “Just swim back to shore.”

“This is your fault,” Ratchet snaps. “Tow me back.”

 _“My_ fault?” Pharma squawks, and splashes Ratchet in the face. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t decided to throw a temper tantrum and disappear! I’ve had enough. Deal with this yourself!”

With that, he slips under the water and out of sight—Ratchet means to give chase, but all too quickly is reminded of the weight of his prosthetic, and has to waste several minutes detaching it. By the time he dips out onto the pockmarked surface of the water, the creature is long gone.

He curses, maneuvers to the back of the rowboat, and slowly, arduously, starts to tow it back to shore. Above him, as quickly as it had started, the rain putters to a stop—around him, the water smooths and crests.

“Goddamn fish,” he mutters, shoving the vessel up onto the wet sand.

He’ll be back tomorrow.


End file.
